A closer look
Tuesday, Oct 2, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
* GateHouse had a good summary of some of the people who testified at yesterday’s Committee of the Whole…
- Martin Rue, superintendent of the LaSalle County Veterans Assistance Commission. He used the word “devastating” to describe budget cuts exceeding $3 million for the LaSalle Veterans Home. The money was to be used for staff members and medical equipment at the home, which has a waiting list of 450 veterans, he said.
- Howard Peters, senior vice president for the Illinois Hospital Association. He said the governor’s plan to expand health-care access is a good idea, but Peters also called on lawmakers to reverse Blagojevich’s decision to trim from the state budget $40 million in Medicaid payments to hospitals.
- Greg Chance, a board member of the Illinois Rural Health Association. He told House members that the association is concerned about several gubernatorial vetoes. One of them, for example, would eliminate $3 million for school-based health centers in rural Illinois, said Chance, who also is public health administrator for the Knox County Health Department.
- Christine Becker, president of the Illinois Chiropractic Society. She criticized Blagojevich’s explanation of his budget cuts, saying: “To expand health care for the poor by cutting health care for the poor makes no common sense.”
* And the Daily Herald managed to pin down the governor’s office on some specific questions. For a while yesterday, the guv’s office was sticking by a boilerplate response to all queries about the House hearing. That apparently changed as the day wore on…
Q:How did you decide what to cut? Did politics play a role?
Governor’s office: “Some of the projects lawmakers included in the budget did not have anything to do with the mission of state government like constructing beach volleyball courts or paying for a dance festival. And while there were some worthwhile projects, we simply can’t fund the state’s top priorities — education and health care — as well as countless member initiatives because the General Assembly did not pass enough new revenues to pay for all the things we may care about.”
Reaction: “But what was the real motivation?” asked House Democrats’ budget director John Lowder. He pointed to a Wayne Township bridge project in which the governor cut half of the funding, but oddly left the other half. “Identical projects for nearly identical purposes for nearly identical amounts. The only difference is which caucus sponsored the project.”
Q:Where’s the money going?
Governor’s office: “There is a serious health care crisis that is impacting families throughout the state leaving many struggling to afford or have access to care. This crisis was completely ignored in the budget passed by legislators.”
Reaction: “He’s actually cutting health care to provide health care of his own choosing,” said state Rep. Lou Lang, a Skokie Democrat, citing cuts to several health care and community care groups.
Q:How do you define pork spending?
Governor’s office: “Member initiatives that didn’t go through the appropriations process, but instead were inserted into the budget at the last minute without any public discourse or hearings as a means for Speaker (Michael) Madigan to buy votes from his members for a budget bill that they hadn’t seen.”
Reaction: “Perhaps the governor needs to revisit the definition of pork,” said Cathy Ficker Terrill, chief executive of the Downers Grove-based Ray Graham Association, which lost a funding increase. “Pork is unnecessary and frivolous. Pork is not helping people with disabilities to live and work in the community.”
It’s kinda funny that the guv’s office is complaining about items “inserted into the budget at the last minute without any public discourse or hearings” when he’s proposing to use that money for programs that received no public hearings and no votes in either legislative chamber. But, hey, such is life with this governor.
* More…
* IL House tries to put face on governor’s budget cuts
* House hears fallout from Gov’s vetoes
* House discusses budget cuts
* Bipartisan effort likely won’t overturn Blagojevich’s veto
* Agency chiefs plead with House for funding
* House hears fallout from budget vetoes
* Bethany Jaegar: Can he do that?
* Blagojevich’s cuts called political
* Opinion: Communities expect elected officials to bring home to bacon
* Opinion: Lawmakers should override library funding veto
- Ghost - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 9:59 am:
so the guv cut out healthcare “pork” so he could bring home the bacon for health care.
And yet he devotes his time hamming it up over the cubs.
I think it is coming time to call our Guv a pig and be done with it.
- Cassandra - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:10 am:
The Illinois Chiropractic Society? Give me a break.
Why are we giving chiropractors money. They are as rich as Croesus, and scientifically suspect as well.
- schroedk - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 11:29 am:
Cassandra-
While, as a physical therapist, I agree with you on some of the “science” of chiropractic care, chiropractic is still 1) a state-licensed and state-recognized provider of health care, and 2) actually do help some people feel better.
Also, most chiropractors (and most health care workers, doctors included) are not “as rich as Croesus”. Most earn every cent they make, and have paid extraordinary costs to get where they are. I agree that ideally they would earn money through a free-market system vs. a taxpayer funded system (I think state-funded health care is so wrong on many levels), but using the argument that they’re “rich” is as bad as when Bill used to tell small business owners to “make less profit” when the GRT was being proposed.
Finally, if doctors and chiropractors were getting “rich” off of Medicaid and public-aid funding, then why do so many (and more everyday) refuse to accept those patients or keep those patients at a specific percentage of their total patient load?
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 11:36 am:
None of the legislative “add-ons” were in the budget until the last minute, so none of the recipients could have any reasonable expectation that they were going to actually get the money. Yet, now that they’ve been vetoed - “they can’t live without the money.” Makes you kind of suspicious about just how necessary this money is, no matter how much the sponsors try to “pretty it up.”
- Cassandra - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 12:00 pm:
Schroedk,
Among developed coountries, American doctors and other health professionals are compensated much more highly than in other countries. Their high compensation contributes to the extraordinarily high cost of health care in America. But that’s not my point.
I’m fine with folks going to chiropractors and feeling better. I’m glad the state regulates them.
I just don’t think it’s a priority for the use of my tax dollars. I’d rather see everybody with a basic, comprehensive health insurance package first, with a graduated fee scale, before we start lavishing extra dollars on chiropractors.
- schroedk - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 12:28 pm:
I don’t want to get off topic much, either, Cassandra, but one of the primary reasons that American doctors are paid more is because, unlike countries with socialized medicine, their training isn’t provided for them by the government. Aside from scholarships and grants, American doctors pay (dearly) for the training they receive, so to expect them to be compensated for that isn’t unreasonable. To socialize one thing (health care) will require socialization of so many other things (school, residencies, etc.) to offset the costs. That’s the slippery slope we’ll be (or ARE) headed down with socialized medicine.
- Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 12:39 pm:
Anon 11:36 — Many of the projects “added on” by legislators had been approved by various agencies and were awaiting funding. Under past administrations, these types of projects moved up the appropriate agency’s list as projects above received funding and were completed. Under Gov. B, approval seems to be based more on whether a Friend of Rod advocates for the project; so many of these have been waiting for years, bypassed by projects that were lower in priority or never even on a list.
The result has been memorandums of agreement with the gov, which haven’t worked, and, this year, specific projects listed.
Admittedly, some of the projects were legislative toss-ins with little thought to actual need. You can spot many of these because the money goes to a town or county with little specificity. On the other hand, projects that have been waiting are much more clearly described in their line item.
The fun type of cut to look for are the those places where the Gov cut back beyond his own request. For this scavenger hunt, you will need the 2008 budget book, the 2008 budget passed out of the house, and the veto-reduction list.
- Ghost - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 12:50 pm:
Cassandra, American Doctors also spend a lot more time in school, and per year of education they are modestly compensated.
In our country we use money to encourage our best and brightest to go into medicine, develope new cures, surgeries etc. America is responsible for over 80% of the medical technology and medical breakthroughs that exist in the world.
Of course in Mexico doctors are paid a lot less. But they are not required to use sterile procuders, have little regulation and so forth. Also the success rate for medical procedures in these countries of poorly paid doctors is not very good. When people want good medical care, such as to repair horrible burns on a little boy, they come to the United States. The quality of medical care in the United States is regarded world wide as the best.
What kind of a health care system would we have if we have the guy who is motivated only towards a low paying government job to be performing heart and brain surgery? In many countries with cheap doctors, they have a second private medical system no one talks about. For those with money, higher paid doctors and better equiped clinics. Quality of care goes down as salaries go down.
In Hillary Clintons America, no one complains that She or her Husband are overpaid for writing books, or that their speking fees are way to high. Yet the books and speeches help no one, but they make millions. Same for Actors. We could give doctors theiur current salaries, or more, and give health care to everyone, if take the majority of profit from book sells, speaking fees, and acting jobs, and poor it into health care.
- Just My Opinion - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 12:58 pm:
I don’t know who it was speaking yesterday iin the House hearings (it was a woman) from Stephenson County talking about dental care for the uninsured. She said there is only one dentist in the county who will take care of uninsured people and he has been paid with a grant from the state that has now been cut from the budget (pork). So this woman asked, does it make sense to cut a health plan to implement one we can’t afford? I thought it really showed that Blago didn’t pay attention so much to the individual project, nor did he research exactly what the money would be used for, as much as he saw who the sponsor was. Another project in Clinton, Illinois is to “remodel” their firehouse. At first blush, it’s a pork project. Digging deeper into it, the remodeling is to make the doors wider so they can purchase larger fire fighting equipment should there be a need at the Clinton Nuclear Power Plant. Does it make sense that there is not adequate fire fighting equipment for a nuclear plant and that withholding the money for the remodeling makes the wait for that equipment even longer? I know some of you will come back and say but the power plant should have the equipment already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I say this world is full of woulda, shoulda coulda’s.
I get it. I really get this “pork” stuff. I understand from reading the budget and seeing what was cut why the legislators have a slush fund of their own for “pork” projects. Perhaps they need to just introduce a bill for each and every “pork” project and really clog the system up. But at least Blago would then have information in front of him as to what the money is for and why it is needed. I really think that the money for a great number of these projects are really needed by the communities. A dance school - no. And there are plenty of other projects that I agree with canceling. However, hearing the testimony yesterday in the house, and I listened to only about an hour of it, showed me that a lot of this money was going to be put to very good use.
By the way, I called the Governor’s budget office and talked with someone named Tanya. She said their office (and she pointed out that all State offices) has the ability to listen to the hearings and that, in fact, some in the gov’s budget office were listening to the hearings. So if the gov tries to say they weren’t listenning because they were too busy doing the state’s business - well they were.
- Just My Opinion - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 2:24 pm:
It was Douglas County - not Stephenson County. My mistake.
- Well Then.... - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 4:05 pm:
If this is true:
“It’s kinda funny that the guv’s office is complaining about items “inserted into the budget at the last minute without any public discourse or hearings” when he’s proposing to use that money for programs that received no public hearings and no votes in either legislative chamber. But, hey, such is life with this governor.”
And, most revenue comes from some kind of taxes…
Doesn’t this represent a classic case of taxation without representation?